St-Ambroise Oatmeal Stout | McAuslan Brewing

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Reviews by crwills:

A classic, and probably my all time favourite to date. I love this beer!

Pours a dark, dark red (almost black), with a gorgeous chocolate milkshake head that fades very slowly as I drink the beer. Swirling it leaves residue on the glass, which for me is always a sign of good things to come.

Smell is cocoa and coffee, strong grains, and a bit of alcohol.

Taste is simply amazing -- sweet chocolate and coffee, yeast and caramel, with a very low carbonation. Mouthfeel is buttery and extremely pleasant, and the aftertaste is dark chocolate with just the right amount of bitter and sweet.

Very glad this beer is easy to come by in my area, and I recommend it to any stout lovers out there.

More User Reviews:

This one was way off my radar, I had never even heard of it until the other day.

I can't say much about the look or aroma because I drank them all out of the can. The flavor was great though. I find a lot of oatmeal stouts lack that distinct oatmeal stout flavor, not this one. Lots of distinct oatmeal flavor. Reminded me of a less intense version (a good thing) of Barney Flats. Plus it's only 5% ABV, a great driving beer.

This is definitely the best thing to ever come out of Montreal. Habs suck!

Such a beautiful looking brew, lacing alone is hard to beat. Aromas and flavors lean towards suggestions of chocolate & mild coffee with a mild silky sweetness from the oats. Very easy drinking even when the aftertaste holds onto the roasty character longer than the palate anticipates. This one may as well be a cult classic within veteran beer geek circles.

Appearance - Pours black with cola brown edging and a thick, cocoa powder colored, two-finger width head. Good retention, resulting in a thin, broken layer of suds and a fair ring around the edge of the glass. Solid lacing, mostly consisting of broken webbing and a few small spots.

Taste - Follows the nose, though the flavor is more balanced. Chocolate cream upfront, but it's quickly enveloped by the smoke and roast character. Hints of dark fruit (plum and raisin) peek through mid-taste and hang to the finish, sitting just beneath the earthy, roasty, toffee sweet and smokey finish. Aftertaste lingers with hints of fruit tang, earth and espresso bitterness.

Overall - Certainly one of the more uniquely flavored oatmeal stouts I've had in my time, even if the overall experience is a bit too 'English' for my taste buds to thoroughly appreciate. I would definitely recommend, if only for the unique experience it brings.

The beer opens with a Stout-enough looking pour: a deeply browned color releases only tanned highlights around the edges. Carbonation reinforces a 1" foamstance that settles into a velvety lace ontop the beer. Completely opaque and leaves a bit of lace on the glass.

Flavors of heavy caramels, toffees, and honey-baked breads provide the malt and sweet base for the beer. Mild coffee and bittersweet cocoa gives a deep complexity to the malts. Again, little on fruits or hops.

The beers texture is velvety, rich, and smooth due to the oats that seem to coat the mouth with a creamy layer of softness right before the Stout-like grains provide their attack. Semi-sweet, and semi-dry because of the arid and somewhat chalky grains- but this fine for Oatmeal Stouts.

The silky texutures I expect, but that smoke (maybe phenolic) flavor was not. I'm not sure if this is an added complexity to the beer or an unwarrented distraction. Regardless, this doesn't kill the beer nor propell it into greatness either. Probably an average Oatmeal Stout but with that odd smokey character.

Wow! It was like drinking soy sauce!No roasted coffee hints,none!Good color no head at all,it was sour pungent just horrible.Age obviosly got to this beer Iam not sure how it found its way down here in NC but Iam sure it had been siting there for awhile,I will retry at some point and re-review.

a wonderfully dark, almost black pour with a generous bronze head. Exceptionally smooth going down with great hints of roasted oates, dark chocolate and even a touch of coffee. this beer easily ranks as one of the world's top oatmeal stouts. it's my personal favorite!

Appearance  This was black and thick like engine oil with a giant head that showed great retention. The foam was like lumpy shaving cream and covered the inside of my glass as it went down. Awesome!

Smell  Wow, this is a stouty Stout. The aroma here is huge. The dark, roasted malts almost cover the oatmeal notes, but I can still pick them out. The cocoa is subtle as are the light fruits. However, as ECB said, there is a medicinal quality to the nose that rubbed me the wrong way.

Taste  This one is bitter and very dark. The oats come out much better at the taste, and the overpowering malt from the nose is back where it belongs. Theres a touch of sweetness at the finish, but not much. Not enough to offset the burnt toast, anyway.

Mouthfeel  This was thinner than I had hoped, not even medium-bodied, but I liked the bitter feeling in the cheeks.

Drinkability  This is more of a sipping stout than a party animal. It is very nice and made a terrific aperitif.

Comments  A big BA thumbs up to Rastacouere for sending me this Canadian East Coast gem. Makes me want to stand up and speak French.

From old, old notes Seeing this on the top 100 forced me to get out the old notebook and play some catch up. Thanks owed to Autumnal Dave for giving me this. Oil like appearance, black and thick. Large creamy light brown head dissipates to pretty lace. Very clingy. Smells like coffee made twangy by apricot or some other light fruit and cocoa with that well know oatmeal bitterness. Quite an ominous feel and heaviness. Very dark and very bitter. Lots of raosted malt followed by oily hops in the finish. Oatmeal bitterness lingers. This is for sipping not downing despite the low abv. Very good.

Look (4.5/5) – Pours a very, very dark brown to black. I can’t really tell if it had go clarity or not because it was so dark. The head was good: it rose to about a finger on a gentle pour; it was mousse-textured and a mocha-khaki color; it fell very slowly to a cap that really lasted with some nice lacing.

Aroma (4/5) – The nose had a lot of malt going on. Given the color, I was surprised to detect bready notes. The main player was roasted malts which fell well shy of being harsh or acrid: notes of black malt, coffee, and chocolate. There was a good bit of sweetness: notes of dark caramel (almost like burnt marshmellow) and a bit of melanoidin flavor.

Taste (4.5/5) – Very similar to the aroma. There’s a light bready, almost grainy and nutty, character as a backbone for the brew (I think this is the oats at play). Dark, Roasted malts were, obviously, very prevalent: a lot more coffee and chocolate than black patent than for the aroma The sweetness was somewhat different character: there was still the caramel, but much less fruit in the character. The bitterness a great balance for the rich malts; no rea hop flavor.

Feel (5/5) – Full bodied and light carbonation. The oats give a really great, silky mouth-feel without being too oily.

Overall, this is probably the best Oatmeal Stout I’ve encountered. It does a particularly great job of balancing the bitterness and intensity of dark roasted malts with sweeter malts and an ideal addition of oats that plays well on the nutty, grainy character without overwhelming the other malts or making an oily mout-feel.

Can't see through it, and what's on top is a light brown foam that just won't leave. Love the smell - roasted barley, dark-ass malts, faint whiffs of burnt toasted toffee... niiiice.

Starts with a "Dragonslayer Junior" flavor - many of the same deep roasty black coffee and cocoa notes, but scaled back. A dark fruity (black cherries?) maltiness comes in mid sip that gives it a solid roundness. Dries out a bit in the finish, but that delectable roastiness with a very slight tang stays throughout. Wish there was a bit more of an oatmeal flavor/oiliness in this one, but it's almost nitpicking given the flavors that are there. medium chewy mouthfeel.

Absolutely caseworthy drinkability. An all day long stout, one of the best ones around IMO.

Chocolate,coffee,creamy oatmeal,smells like it sat in a cask,black as can be, taste is choclate oatmeal and malt,drier than I expected, body seemed highly charged, but still had that oatmeal slick mouthfeel , excellent in its class, I just like them a touch sweeter

This is a fantastic Oatmeal Stout! it's the wife's favorite beer and is definately in my top 5.

1. Dark-Chocolate Brown, definately not black, hold it up to light and you'll see. Staring at the glass, very little light gets through here, pretty characteristic of the class. Pours a fluffy, light brown head that sticks around for a bit, lacing is great and holds up throughout the entire drink. it's sitting infront of me right now, put a fork in the center of it and you cannot see it. very good appearance.

2. has a distinct roasted smell of mocha-oat mixed with faint blackstrap molasses coming in as well. very pleasing smell, not sweet, not bitter, just pretty much bang on!

3. absoulutely fantastic. i really do appreciate the craftsmenship in this product. the Mocha-Oatmeal flavors hit straight away, it's not bitter nor is it over powering with the chocolate flavors. like the smell, it's bang on, except better! you can let this one sit for a while and experiance a wonderful roasted taste as well. it is a bit dry at first, but that went away after a few sips. malt aftertaste is definately present.

4. for some reason i was expecting more. it's relatively thin, but there is still definately a body there, just not as much compared to some other oat-stouts i've tried. good regardless though. smooth though, with a tad bit of dry-tarty feel.

5. superb, i can enjoy this brew anytime and anywhere. it's overall very smooth and full of flavor that i find just amazing.

this is another fine product that i'd recommend to anyone to try out that enjoys this genre of beers.

Taste: Crisp carbonation and mouth feel with a mild steely biting roasted bitterness that softens into an iced espresso flavour. Hops hide behind the roasted character, a meek silky oily sweetness from the oatmeal give a little to the taste buds. The roasted coffee like taste lingers on and on.

Notes: Quite robust and a little boisterous to the palate. Hmmm &#8230;. tastes like an oatmeal stout from the peek of the Micro-Brewery Revolution or at least a kick ass homebrew. Got to love this stuff &#8230; not many people have the balls to brew like this these days. Great stuff guys!